


soft, low, sweet, and plain

by heart_nouveau



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe
Genre: Best Friends, Bucky just wants to carry Steve's books, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, brief homophobic language, teenage Steve is a little angsty about being such a little guy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-09
Updated: 2012-11-09
Packaged: 2017-11-18 08:07:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/558732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heart_nouveau/pseuds/heart_nouveau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Gee, I’m sorry, Steve,” Bucky says honestly. As if Steve needed any more excuses for getting sick. “Are you gonna have to miss school now? I can bring you your homework.”</p><p>That makes Steve laugh a little. “And <em>your</em> homework too, I’ll bet.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	soft, low, sweet, and plain

**Author's Note:**

> As much as I love Steve's self-assurance at the beginning of Captain America, I feel like he definitely may have gone through an angsty teenage phase ("am I EVER going to get taller and stop being so sick all the time?!"), starting right around seventh or eighth grade. That's the phase I wrote about.

 

It’s been a long Thursday of eighth grade for everyone. The final bell of the day sounds at last, marking the end to six hours of what Bucky generally considers to be readin’, ‘ritin’, and ‘rithmetic drudgery. He can see other students pouring into the junior high’s gated schoolyard, dressed for winter, the air frosty even this early in the Brooklyn afternoon.

Bucky lopes down the school’s front steps, glad to be free. He hooks his fingers in the straps of his backpack and turns around to watch Steve descending the stairs, looking decidedly wan. “You want me to carry that for you?” he blurts out, indicating Steve’s heavy bookbag. Steve always insists on lugging piles of schoolbooks home, which Bucky doesn’t understand. He only carries books when he strictly has to. He’s got his algebra textbook today to do the assignment due tomorrow, and that’s it. 

“ _No_ , Bucky,” Steve says, annoyed. He reaches the bottom of the school steps and looks up… _way_ up at Bucky. Bucky has shot up in the past few years, looks fourteen going on eighteen, while Steve has remained the same: tiny, with the bearing of a dignified sixty-year-old man. Same as ever, he hates when Bucky tries to help him due to his size. Usually Bucky refrains, lets Steve carry his monster bag to affirm his manliness. Today, though, he feels the responsibility to be a swell friend.

“C’mon, that thing probably weighs more than you do,” Bucky protests. It’s true. Steve couldn’t even buckle his bag closed today, it’s so full. “Just lemme carry some of ‘em.”

“No!” Steve is unusually feisty today. “What, you want people to think we’re going steady? Cut it out.”

Bucky reaches down and swipes the top four books easily, keeping Steve out of retaliation range with one hand. Steve lets out a big noise of frustration, trying unsuccessfully to snatch them back.

“Hi, Bucky,” says Annemarie Antonin, smiling at him flirtatiously as she passes by, elbows linked with her best friend. He shoots her a grin and balances a book on his head to show off. She and her friend dissolve into giggles. “Hi, Steve,” her friend adds, with a genuinely nice smile. Well, would you look at that. What’s her name, Susie? Susie Jones, that's right. Bucky grins at her, too.

Steve looks a little less put out when Bucky turns back to him, smirking. “Don’t even think about it,” Bucky says, hugging the books to his chest. Steve gives him a dirty look but drops the subject, buckling his bag closed and zipping up his jacket.

They cross the tiny schoolyard and start the mile-long walk home, Bucky drifting across the sidewalk, kicking leaves and ruminating, while Steve trudges stolidly along. He’s probably brooding. He’s always got something on his mind these days. He doesn’t smile as much as he used to, and every time Bucky asks what’s with the sour puss he gets a twenty-minute rambling lecture on this and that, but mainly how people should just ease up on other people, and that how people look isn’t everything.

They’re passing Goodman’s Drug and Pharmacy when Bucky halts, shoving his hands into his pants pockets. “You wanna stop?”

Steve pauses. “I don’t know, do you? You need something?”

“Me? Nah.” Bucky pulls on his backpack straps. “D’you?”

Steve gives him a look. “No.”

 “But you’re always sick.” Subtlety isn’t Bucky’s strong point. He shifts his weight and says offhandedly, “I mean, you maybe want some cough syrup or something? Just, y’know, in case? I got some back wages from old man DeLuco, so it’s on me. Or, uh, if you just want a soda, if you’re thirsty, I could get you that too,” he finishes hastily, because his best friend is starting to look real suspicious.

Steve narrows his eyes at Bucky. “What is it,” he says accusingly. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Bucky squirms. He can’t stop himself, though, and bursts out, “I just feel so bad that you’ve got strep again, Steve. And the nurse says maybe I gave it to you! ‘Cause I’m immune now that I’ve had it, but I can still carry the germs. And since I’m your best pal, it was probably me you got it from.”

Steve goes all stiff looking. “You weren’t supposed to know that,” he says coldly, but his voice sounds tired all the same.

“Gee, I’m sorry, Steve,” Bucky says honestly. As if Steve needed any more excuses for getting sick. “Are you gonna have to miss school now? I can bring you your homework.”

That makes Steve laugh a little. “And _your_ homework too, I’ll bet.”

Bucky shrugs nonchalantly. “Well, you have all the extra time, so…”

Steve laughs again, sounding a bit more relaxed. “I hate missing school,” he says, still slightly petulant.

“I know,” Bucky says, biting his lip sympathetically. Personally, he’d love to miss some school, but he knows Steve hates it. If he were as good at school as Steve, he probably wouldn’t like missing days either.

“An egg cream,” Steve says. Then, with more manners then Bucky ever pretends to have, he repeats, “I’d like an egg cream.”

“You got it,” says Bucky, feeling a rush of warmth for his friend. He reaches over and holds the door open, ignoring Steve’s eyeroll as he walks in, passing under Bucky’s arm with a good foot to spare.

 

Bucky does his math homework sitting on the floor of Steve’s tiny living room after dinner, back pressed against the shabby couch. Steve lies on the couch behind him, engrossed in a bulky history book. When Bucky gets tired of sitting on the floor he gets up and pushes Steve over to share the couch, and Steve submits to his manhandling without complaint.

Steve’s mom doesn’t say anything when she comes into the living room to find Steve dozed off with his head on Bucky’s lap, Flash Gordon on the radio. She gives Bucky a weary smile, wiping her hands on her apron. Steve’s mom is so much like him, putting all her effort into working and caring for Steve; she rarely has any energy left for smiles. Bucky likes her, remembering that she’s never been stingy with her smiles in all the years he’s known her.

He’s grateful on some level, too, that she’s without comment at this scene, accepting it without question. He knows his parents wouldn’t have come into a similar situation without yelling, raising a fuss. Even if they couldn’t put their finger on it, something about Steve and Bucky’s friendship has always been an irritant to his parents’ not-so-latent anger. Maybe it was because Steve is so small and well spoken (Bucky’s dad has more than once called him a fairy—never in front of Steve, thankfully). Maybe it’s because they sense the underlying tenderness with which Bucky treats Steve, a tenderness present in no other relationship in Bucky’s life. It isn’t Bucky’s fault if Steve needs protecting, it just feels like it’s Bucky’s obligation to do that protecting. So he’s not embarrassed of being tender with Steve, even if he knows instinctually that it’s something he has to conceal from certain people, like his parents—and even if sometimes it seems like Steve himself is embarrassed of it. Bucky knows he’s Steve’s best pal, anyway. Steve just hates feeling like Bucky’s coddling him because he’s small. If he can’t see that it’s more than that, for Bucky anyway, then hopefully someday he will.

He helps Mrs. Rogers get Steve to bed. She leads the way and Bucky very carefully picks Steve up, letting him settle against his chest, murmuring in his sleep. It’s wild that at fourteen Bucky is already strong enough to do this, and he’s secretly pleased that he can. He’s never picked Steve up before, and knows how annoyed Steve would be if he were awake. It’s kind of nice that Steve isn’t awake to protest, though. He looks very young, long eyelashes shuttered against his cheeks.

He lowers Steve into bed and helps Mrs. Rogers tuck him in, pulling the layers of blankets into place. Mrs. Rogers looks at him expectantly and Bucky realizes that it’s time for him to leave. He hesitates, then impulsively leans down and strokes Steve’s head, pushing the blond hair off his forehead in a short careful movement. Steve is peacefully breathing for once, narrow chest rising and falling under his thin T-shirt. Bucky wants to do more, give him a hug or something, but Mrs. Rogers is right there. “’Night, Steve,” is all he says, quietly. He rocks back on his feet and follows her out with more docile respect than he gives any other adult in his life.

“Steve must certainly be glad you came over today, James,” she says, pausing by the apartment’s front door to let Bucky to button his coat. “You come over any time you want now.”

Bucky nods. “Thanks, Mrs. Rogers.” He digs the toe of his sneaker into the threadbare rug. “I’m sorry he’s got strep— _again._ I feel bad ‘cause, well, the nurse says maybe I was the one who gave it to him.”

Mrs. Rogers looks tired. “Well, he’s always been sickly. Takes after me, I suppose. Run along now dear.”

Bucky waffles for a moment, then envelops her in a quick, very awkward hug that’s all limbs. She’s a little woman, and he towers over her. He can tell that she’s surprised for a moment, but feels her acquiescent laugh and answering little pat on the small of his back, which is apparently as far as she can reach. “All right, dear. Thank you for everything.”

Bucky gives her a sheepish grin. “Bye, Mrs. Rogers.” He lopes down the stairs into the Brooklyn night.

 

A year later Mrs. Rogers goes into the sanatorium for TB—she has sickly lungs just like Steve, she was right—and she never comes out.

Bucky’s parents kick him out, or he leaves, it’s some combination of both—and he spends a lot more time tucking Steve in at night. Eventually, just as Bucky thought he might, Steve finally understands that Bucky’s not just doing it to protect Steve because he’s small.

It’s about time.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from (Love is Like A) Heat Wave by Martha & the Vandellas.
> 
> Somewhat inspired by brumous' beautiful fan art found [here](http://brumous.tumblr.com/post/19416514701/steve-bucky-3-3-3-drawn-in-pencil-scanned).


End file.
